


i’ll be out there somewhere

by dingletragedy



Category: EastEnders (TV)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Lots of tears, M/M, and sad, but also feelings a belonging and relief and love, look after yourselves <33
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:27:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22722418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dingletragedy/pseuds/dingletragedy
Summary: Winter’s sun has risen, and Ben is still beneath the sheets when he blinks his heavy lids open.There’s no sound, the usual soft breathing beside him absent, and the warmth replaced with a coolness that sinks so deep it’s chilling. London’s soft light is spilling in across the sheets, slanting into his eyes, stinging, enhancing the tiredness he feels. It takes him a moment to come to himself, still halfway stuck in the darkness of his troubled dreams.When he does manage to blink himself awake, he’s wet-eyed and hazy, and registers nothing but the empty half of the bed bedside him. He lays entirely still and swallows against the feeling of his skin curling, against the feeling of his body trying to turn itself inside-out.Three days in a row.
Relationships: Callum "Halfway" Highway/Ben Mitchell, Callum ''Halfway'' Highway/Chris Kennedy
Comments: 8
Kudos: 90





	i’ll be out there somewhere

**Author's Note:**

> my secret valentine’s gift for the wonderful @lolapearce on tumblr xx

_i see everything can’t be,_ _  
__i see the beauty that you can’t see,_ _  
__on the nights you feel outnumbered,_ _  
__i’ll be out there somewhere_

  
  


**February 10th 2020**

The week starts with Ben wrapped around Callum, Callum wrapped around Ben, in any which and every way. 

Things seem normal at the beginning of the week. They appear that way, at least, on the surface. Beneath all that, beneath sunny smiles and quiet touches, Ben’s veins are bubbling and swelling constantly, heart shifting between barely beating and thudding viciously against his ribs. He can’t explain it, yet everything feels on edge, as if a blanket fear and fragility has fallen over Walford, dark and omnipresent; a heavy-weight, tension only leasing up when he gets home to Callum. _To his warmth._

But it seems Callum is keeping him in a constant state of whiplash, and it’s so unlike him it sends Ben’s head spinning. Callum is either nowhere or everywhere, unreachable and distant or pressed up so close that Ben has trouble breathing. Ben wakes up alone two days in a row, later than he normally would, with a chill in his bones and a headache blooming between his eyes. It ignites this pent up feeling insidehim, this terrifying bundle of fear and nerves compiling itself in the centre of his chest.

Callum doesn’t meet him for their daily lunch-date, nor does he show up at the car-lot with a coffee and smile and Ben doesn’t go as far as to check for him at the funeral parlour. Because it somehow feels alien and odd and too much like overstepping, when really, it isn’t. In the afternoon, though, Callum will text him, a simple **_Chinese tonight?_ ** and something about that tears Ben’s mind in two.

His heart spikes at the attention still though, eager, but it also sinks and swells and twists all wrong, because he always thinks the same when he wakes up alone, and he doesn’t know what to do, what to make of it. It’s not like Callum, he’s clingy in the morning, needy in all the ways Ben loves. But since the sun rose on Monday morning, he’d closed up. _Cold. Distant. Closed._

But Ben goes back home, to Callum’s flat, says: **_Yes, absolutely_** , to the offer of Chinese and takeaway and Callum will be all over him, poking and prodding and kissing Ben silly as he’s perched on the kitchen counter, until Ben finally caves, folds their lips together softly. The taste of cheap beer and something so familiar between them. It’s a distraction, Ben knows that, but he’ll let Callum take whatever he wants, needs, form Ben, because it’s Callum and he can’t deny him anything, especially not this. Not when Callum’s given it to him so many times before. _Comfort. Safety. Patience._

**February 14th 2020**

Winter’s sun has risen, and Ben is still beneath the sheets when he blinks his heavy lids open. 

There’s no sound, the usual soft breathing beside him absent, and the warmth replaced with a coolness that sinks so deep it’s chilling. London’s soft light is spilling in across the sheets, slanting into his eyes, stinging, enhancing the tiredness he feels. It takes him a moment to come to himself, still halfway stuck in the darkness of his troubled dreams. When he does awake, he’s wet-eyed and hazy, and registers nothing but the empty half of the bed bedside him. He lays entirely still and swallows against the feeling of his skin curling, against the feeling of his body trying to turn itself inside-out. 

_Three days in a row._

He sits up with a hand over his heart as he swallows thickly. His pulse is jumping against his neck, his eyes heavy, heart sunken. 

The rest of the flat seems as deathly quiet as the bedroom, just the laps of footsteps from the street below can be heard through the opened window. Ben shuffles into the kitchen to grab a drink. The water is freezing cold, glass-like a pinprick in his palms, but he drinks all of it with a rasping gulp, trying to settle himself. 

It’s then he notices an old notepad flung across one of the counters, and he’s sure it wasn’t there the previous night. It been left open on a double page, there’s a sprawl of black ink across it, loopy-cursive letters filling the page. 

**_Gone for a walk, needed to get out for a bit - Callum x_ **

As he places the notepad back on the counter, another piece of paper catches his eye. _An envelope addressed to Callum_. It’s been opened with care, that much is obvious, and Ben feels awful for even contemplating looking at the contents of the card inside, as if he’s imposing on something private and intimate. 

The guilt is so heavy it feels like a physical weight on his chest, but he can't resist his racing heart for too long. 

**_Callum_** **,** ** _love,_** it reads at the top with neat, unfamiliar writing. Ben's throat immediately tightens, heart falling somewhere unreachable. 

**_Thinking of you today and always._ **

**_I hope you’ve found the comfort you need._ **

**_Vikki x_ **

With a heavy heart and shaky fingers, Ben carefully tucks the card back into the envelope and folds the flap over it. Physically, the words disappear, but he can’t lock them away, there's this thrum pulsing through him, like his entire body is a wound.

_He needs to find Callum._

As Ben steps outside, the atmosphere remains stoic and silent, reminiscent of a storm brewing. The trees creak around him, groan when those harsh winds start to push. Against the soft light of first dawn, the streets seem just a simple mirage of shadow, the power lines and the silhouettes of the market stalls.

There’s this eeriest stillness within the air, barely any life to be seen — especially not the one Ben’s eyes are frantically searching for — Callum’s. 

He tries the undertakers first, but the locks are bolted. Next, he visits the car lot, but it seems exactly how Bem left it the previous day, a mess. Then, the pub. The park. The Albert. _No luck._

He breathes out long and slow as he reaches the cafe, his final stop, and pushes at the door frantically before him. The warmth and laughter hits him at once; it feels forgien, wrong, when Callum isn’t by his side. 

It’s just Ben’s luck that he bumps straight into a tall body. 

“Watch it, idiot.” 

_Oh. Jack._

“Sorry,” Jack says, not sounding the slightest bit apologetic. “Oh actually, I’m glad I bumped into you.”

“Right, well,” Ben says dismissively. “I’m a bit busy so can you—“ 

“I’ve just seen your Callum, up at the graveyard,” Jack interrupts, and Ben can’t be sure his heart doesn’t switch places with his stomach. 

“The graveyard?” 

With this revelation, there’s a new, different kind of fuzziness Ben’s registering now, something that isn’t phantom. His knees feel weak and he has the very sudden urge to let himself fall down. A quiet panic curls around his spine before he can stop it, and he knows it makes a home in his eyes when he finally glances up and sees the look on Jack’s face, brimmed wide with a real concern, cautious as he leads Ben out of the pub. 

“Go and find him, yeah?” Jack says. He shifts a gentle hand to Ben’s shoulder, shaking him lightly. “Think he might need you today.” 

“Yeah, course,” Ben murmurs. “Cheers, Jack.”

Ben doesn’t know why but as he approaches the graveyard, he feels full of nervous energy. He feels like he’s intruding on something, waiting for someone or something else to pop out and terrify him. But this is just Callum. _His Callum._

He spots the man in question almost straight away, just a speck in the distance. The sky impossibly feels impossibly huge and wide, full of possibilities and life, yet the clouds pull in a blend of dreary greys and dull blues, trashing with the force of the wind; reminding Ben of his whereabouts. Each step he takes feels weighted, sticky and gluggy, and his under eyes are bulging, swollen, temples throbbing from the amount he’d slept, or rather hadn’t, last night. 

Callum turns when he hears Ben’s footsteps approaching; startelled. 

“Hey,” Ben breathes softly, and he knows, meeting Callum’s eyes, that his words could break him easy as anything. Like glass about to splinter, one wrong footfall away from shattering into a million tiny pieces.

“Hi,” Callum croaks back, almost inaudible. His head lifts and he looks to Ben slowly. He looks entirely exhausted, under eyes hollowed and dark, hair a mess on his head, curled in on himself.

“I’ve been looking for you all morning,” Ben says. He hates the way his voice sounds, because he’s not angry at Callum. But sometimes anger and worry cross paths, the polar emotions become all muddled, near impossible to separate. _Life and death. Light_ _and dark. Anger and worry_. But that’s what love is capable of, Ben supposes. He shakes at Callum’s shoulder gently. “Callum. Look at me, yeah?”  
  
The sun has snuck behind the clouds now, but something is making his vision ache. It’s a new, different kind of fuzziness Bens registering, something that isn’t phantom. His knees and his elbows are weak and he has the very sudden urge to let himself fall down. To fall at Callum’s feet and beg him to open up, to let Ben in. He hates this helplessness. A quiet panic curls around his spine before he can stop it, and he knows it makes a home in his eyes when Callum finally glances up to him, his eyes brimmed wide with a concern all of his own. 

“I’m sorry.” 

Fear pricks at Ben’s skin at how calm and articulate Callum sounds, this isn’t like him one bit. This isn’t his Callum. 

“What for?” Ben questions, not because he wants to, but because he has to. 

Only Callum remains stoic and silent. 

“Cal, I need you to talk to me,” Ben says. He shifts a gentle hand to Callum’s hair, fingers raking through the knots, and shakes him lightly. His eyes close with half frosted lashes. “Hey, no. Hey.”  
  
“‘M fine,” Callum murmurs. “I’m okay. Honestly. Just—sorry.” 

He takes a seat on the bench next to Callum, it’s one of those brown wooden memorial ones with tired slats and a shiny brass plaque for someone’s late grandparents, married for decades.  
  
He stops, brushes his fingers over the plaque, and wonders, a little morbidly, if anyone would ever build a bench for him. _Him and Callum._

He’s itching to take Callum’s hand. His fingers are twitching where they fall brushing lightly against Callum’s thigh. He wants Callum to allow Ben to give him what little comfort his touch might offer, wants to let him help. Wants to share their grief, lean against each other, rely on each other.  
  
 _He wants to hold his hand._

“You’ve ain’t got anything to be sorry for. Nothing, alright? Just talk to me, babe, please.” 

At that, Callum sits up swiftly, averts his eyes, wrings his hands together in his lap, and somehow makes himself as small as a child, despite his height. 

“I uh, I need—“ Callum starts. “No, want—to tell you something.”

“Anything.” The word is so earnest it aches in Ben’s mouth.

He watches with gentle eyes as Callum pulls a photograph out of his coat pocket. It’s a little worn around the edges, a sign of love and devotion, Ben decides. 

There’s two people pictured, yet only one jumps out to Ben — Callum, obviously — he looks happy, that’s the first thing Ben notices. His smile is beaming, glistening in the harsh camera flash, his eyes dancing, dimples indefinite. A far cry from the sadden look shadowing his features today. 

He’s stood with his arm looped around another man; matching in uniform and smiles too. 

“That’s Chris,” Callum breathes, finger brushing delicately over the man's smiling face. He pushes his spare palm along the tops of his thighs, curls his finger anxiously over his knee as he releases another long exhale. Ben stares, swallows thickly at the shadows under Callum’s eyes, the way they hallow his cheeks out. Ben feels worlds away but like nothing could ever move him from this point in time. “He is— _was_ —wasvery special to me.” 

Ben doesn’t know what to say to that. His chest feels close to collapsing, too many emotions trying to fight for a place at the forefront of Ben’s mind, unable to simply coexist together right now, and he’s hit with waves of different feelings, something dark blue that sits like a deadweight in the pit of his stomach, something rose-red that clings to his heart. 

“Was?” Ben questions, heart plummeting for the uptenth time this morning, already fearing the answer. 

_And Callum, he just breaks._  
  
He releases these muffled, hiccuping sobs, his face screwed up tight. In the light of day, Ben holds him close and hushes him, brushes his thumbs over his cheeks to try and wipe his tears away, over his brows to try and soothe him, over the bumps and scars.

And perhaps the thing that hurts the most is that Callum doesn’t move at all, just hides his face away more, shoulders shaking with tired trembles.  
  
“Look at me,” Ben whispers, and he pulls back enough to cup Callum’s hot cheeks in his palm, to press his lips to his forehead over and over. “Hey, it’s alright. I’m here.”  
  
“He—” Callum breathes. “It’s been a year—it’s been a year, Ben.” 

“Okay. Do you want to talk about it? About Chris?” Ben asks cautiously. 

“I don’t know how,” Callum admits, meek. He looks away. “I’ve never—I don’t even know how—or where to start.”

“Take as long as you need, we’ve got all day, after all,” he attempts with a lightened tone. 

“He was special, Ben. So special, and I never let him know that,” Callum says quietly, wistfully, but his voice grows tight and panicked as he talks, eyes watering some more. Ben’s heart spikes in his chest.

Darkness shadows across Callum’s face slowly, creeping in as his eyes grow dull, and he curls into himself again. He opens his mouth again, then snaps it shut, taking in a shuddery breath.

“You can stop if you want,” Ben whispers. “It’s okay.”

“Sorry, it’s just,” his eyes are misty again, “it’s hard to talk about him.”

He lets Callum breathe, lets him gather his thoughts. The leaves below their feet rustle soft. 

“Why don’t you start from the beginning, hey?”

Callum nods and looks down at his feet. Ben can almost feel it, remember it, this strange sense of guilt that holds Callum’s posture stiff.

And so Callum begins.

He tells Ben everything he can. From the nights in the camp, the days out in fields. He tells Ben about their first few weeks on duty, about that first night they met. About the dindgy bar they drank themselves stupid in and the way their hands brushed as they made the trek back. 

He tells him of how his dreams were filled with silent screams and broken cries and smashing glass, and how sometimes he woke up with the distinct feeling that he was about to be hurt, or that Chris _was_ hurt, but then he’d wake to a palm on his face, gentle fingers and whispered words. _Chris. Always Chris._

He tells Ben of a warmer days, sweltering in a way that England never is, of sunshine and flushed cheeks. He feels Ben of those rare days off, the ones spent down by the pool of water, feet dipping into the current and heart dipping into so,etching else entirely. He tells Ben about how vividly he remembers the blue, the way it would ripple along with their laughter as night closed in. 

He tells Ben of those nights. The nights spent under the star, Chris talking Callum through each and every constellation littering the sky, as Callum himself would paint his own constellations in Chris’ eyes, fingers dancing dangerously close in the sand. 

He tells Ben of the injury, the release from the army, those first few months in Walford. Wandering around the big-city as if he were looking for something he didn’t quite know he’d lost. 

He tells Ben that he soon began to forget the pieces of himself from the army, that he became transfixed on putting the past, _Chris_ , behind him, in attempt to prove himself. 

He tells Ben about yearning for something, someone, he never had, he tells him of the guilt for that yearning, for the horrid shame that would settle like sludge in the pit of his stomach. He recalls the nights he tossed and turned in bed next to Whitney, hating himself for dismissing something that could’ve been so good, hating himself for wanting to change, but hating himself for who he was, also. 

When he finishes, Callum slowly clamps a hand over his mouth and digs his fingers into his skin, letting out a shuddery breath. 

Ben doesn’t think he’s breathed the entire time Callums been talking, all thoughts washed away by the lull of Callum’s voice, the edge to it. 

In the quiet, Ben tries to get his mind to catch up with the way his chest is aching, imagining a younger Callum, inquisitive yet scared and silent. 

“Thank you,” are the words Ben finds eventually. 

“What for?” 

“For telling me all of that,” he says, words from the heart. “It can’t have been easy.”

“No, suppose it eren’t,” Callum ducks his head, lashes fanned out and golden, the apples of his cheeks have gone rosy in the February chill as he shrugs his shoulders. “I ain’t a very private person, I find it hard to cover my emotions. But with this, with Chris, I am.”

“God, Callum,” Ben starts, bumps their foreheads together softly, as he brings a hand up to round Callum’s head, and he smiles softly when Callum finally glances up at him, his fingers twisting slowly at the cuffs of his jumper. “You’re so brave, and brilliant, and more courageous than you’ll ever know. I’m just glad I get to see it, everyday.”

And that gets a returning smile from Callum, the first of the week, soft edged, and cautious, like he’s reaching out and pressing his hand over Ben’s heart just with a look. 

Ben bites at his lip, trying to find the most delicate way around his next question as he pulls away. “Do you miss him? Chris, I mean? It’s okay if you do, you know. I miss Paul everyday.” 

Callum looks down at his feet again and shrugs, but it’s feeble and small, and Ben tries not to register the wetness to his own eyes. 

“You do?”

“Yeah,” Ben admits. “Always will. That don’t mean I ain’t happy with you, though. I am. God, I’m the happiest I’ve been, Callum.” 

“Me too,” Callum answers after a bout of silence, picking at the skin of his thumb, gaze lowered. “Sometimes,” another shaky breath. “I miss him sometimes, or rather, I think I miss what could have been. The relationship I could have had with him if I hadn’t been so scared of who I was.”

And Ben understands. It's a constant ache in the chest, grief is, an emptiness that's difficult to explain. It feels void, like a clawed hand has dug out everything that's inside of you, leaving a gaping hole in the middle of your chest, edges torn and jagged.

There’s nothing, Ben thinks, taking in Callum’s still form, quite as paralysing as grief.  
  
But he’s sure he doesn’t need to tell Callum that.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Callum says suddenly, shakily. “Ben, I’m so—“ he cuts himself off, squeezes his eyes shut. “I’ve been such a shit boyfriend recently, ain’t I?” 

His voice is cracked, hoarse from the tears and it’s instinct, when Ben puts a hand on his arm, tries to soothe him; like riding a bike, learning to swim, the lyrics to your favourite song; Ben supposes, you never forget. “No, ‘course not. You couldn’t ever be.”

“Ain’t been much fun though, have I?”

“You’ve been hurting, Callum. There’s a difference,” he soothes, hopes his voice portrays the understanding he’s aiming for. “I know what it’s like, losing someone — someone you love,” he continues as he digs his thumbs into Callum’s back. He doesn’t want to compare the two. It’s incomparable, grief is. But he’d try anything to help Callum right now. “And you did, didn’t you? Love him?”

He’s met with a nod, shaky but there. 

Ben sucks in a heavy breath, closes his eyes for a moment as the familiar feeling he’s been actively avoiding washes over him like a flood. “I know that feeling, that emptiness. I held onto it for so long, that feeling of being stuck, moving through the days in slow motion, feeling time pass around you but your life standing still.”

No one ever tells you how much it’ll hurt, no one can ever relay into words what it feels like to know you’ll never see someone’s face again, or hear their voice or feel their longed touch. It hurts, it burns, and the sting of it all doesn’t wane, it doesn’t fade. The only thing that really changes is how you begin to deal with it, you become better at coping, you learn to function, to move with the days, but you never forget and the ache never numbs. Instead it lingers and lurks, always looming in the shadows of your mind, unescapable grief, unavoidable sorrow. 

“I know how you’re feeling. I get it.” Ben sighs sadly. “But you know that, Callum. You could’ve spoken to me about this, about anything. I thought you knew that?”

“I do know, I do—,” Callum sighs. “I just—I didn’t want to upset you.”

“You ain’t.” 

When there’s no response, Ben finally glances back up. Callum is staring at him, unconvinced, thin brows drawn together, and there’s that sadness still in his eyes that makes Ben’s throat swell, because he doesn’t want it, he doesn’t want that look, not from Callum. _Not ever._

“You’re my boyfriend, Callum,” Ben says, the words sit on his tongue familiar, round his mouth like poetry. “Your problems are my problems, remember?”

“Sorry I just disappeared on you like that,” Callum whispers after a beat. 

Ben shakes his head. When he speaks, his lips move against the soft of Callum’s neck, head buried in the crook there. “ _Don’t be daft_. I understand, I know you needed time.”

“It’s just, life is so shit sometimes.”

Callum says eventually, eyes wet. Ben feels it right in the centre of his chest when their eyes meet, a dark blue weight that’s slowly working its way into his blood.

“I know,” Ben cuts him off gently with a sad smile. He encases Callum’s hand with both of his own, warmth and soft.

It’s almost as though they’re two puzzle pieces, searching for their counterparts and finding resolution in each other’s cracks and breaks and grief.

“Chris—was he—was he killed?” Ben questions, kicks himself for doing so. “On duty, I mean?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Callum says, head shaking with force. “A car crash. Mad ain’t it? You can go out there and put your life on the line for a living, day in day out, yet something as simple as a car can be the thing to end your life.” 

“It ain’t fair,” Ben agrees, “always the good ones, ain’t it? But they’ve got each other, you know? Chris and Paul, reckons they’re looking down at us now, probably having a laugh about what dramatic gays we are, but happy for us.” 

“You think?” 

“I like to,” Ben says, and if Callum notices the way his voice wobbles around the words, he doesn’t say anything. “I like to think they’d be proud of us, the same way I’m proud of you.” 

“Shut up,” Callum says, cheeks tinted with a cotton candy blush. “When I left the army, I felt this horrible sense of relief. Because I’d convinced myself that Chris was just a one-off, a phase or whatever, that I could leave behind. I thought I could bury my feelings, for him, for boys, if I never saw him again, you know?”

“Hate to break it to you babe, but I don’t think that quite planned out for you.”

Callum lets out a quiet puff of laughter, sudden and soft, and pulls his head away from Ben’s neck. It leaves a cold patch, spreads pins and needles down his arms. Callum looks him right in the eye, red-rimmed and bleary. “Because then I met you. And God, Ben, you changed everything.

_“Soft.”_

“You’re good at this,” Callum says next, and the elaboration Ben is waiting for, never comes. 

He pauses, fingers still pressing into Callum’s back, half moon crescents dug deep, misshaped hearts and kisses. When he glances over, Callum has shifted slightly to lean against Ben’s side, watching with hooded eyes.

“At what?” Ben questions.

“Taking care of other people,” Callum says, voice so soft that it’s almost lost under the distant sound, the muted lap of birds chirping behind them. “Looking after us.”

“Only you.”

_Only you, forever and always._

Callum blinks up at him slowly, let’s out this tiny huff of breath and with it Ben can see some tension dispute his body. It brings this fuzziness to Ben’s heart, thrumming in time with the crack of Callum’s smile. 

He buries his face against Callum’s neck and kisses the skin there over and over, still holding him in the air. It feels as if there are these subtle waves washing over then, rolling sets that bring a cycle of emotions each time they lap over, washing them away as they go. It allows them time to breathe, time to grow. 

“I love you,” Callum says. Ben opens his eyes and tilts his head up. Callum shifts his hand and grips tighter at Ben’s own. “More than you could ever know.” 

“I love you too,” Ben says. “So bloody much.” 

The declarations wash over them in rays of sun, calm them both to the core. Ben takes to stroking his finger through Callum’s hair, watching as his chest rises and falls evenly as they settle into this delicate bubble, one of warmth and love and belonging, acceptance and allowance, one that wraps them up and nestles close.

It’s as if suddenly the fog lifts, and Ben can see clearly again. Purple, blue, orange, red; colours of feeling, of love, of life. But even with the lights out, Ben would see colour with Callum by his side, with the way he struggles not to shine.

_Nothing can touch them here._


End file.
